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Saturday, September 10, 2016

Pokemon Phones

There are a few sounds that scare me
more than an ‘Uhm.’ I turn and look at Jay.

He holds up his cell phone. Smoke is
billowing out of it. “I think something went wrong, Charlie?”

“Does it involve you putting alarms
in my stomach so I’d never forget supper?”

Jay shakes his head, all of eleven and
quite serious. “Not even the potatoes!”

I pause. “Potatoes?”

“Uh-huh. I promised to help someone
make their grow really buy but found a Pokemon only I think it’s
too many on my phone cuz it’s over 800 now and getting weirdy.”

Jay hands me his phone. He is eleven.
He is also from far Outside the universe and can do things even
magicians can barely understand. I text the wandering magician with,
‘Phone. Now.’

I set Jay’s phone on the ground, dial
the wandering magician and he he somehow uses my phone and his as a
bridge, stepping out of the air beside us. “I was on the other side
of town, making wards to help hold some homes together.” He eyes
Jay’s phone. “Ah.”

“Honcho?” Jay looks worried.

“Not your fault.” The wandering
magician sighs, snaps his fingers and – the air ripples. Twitches.
Punctures. For a moment there is something I can’t make sense of at
all, and then everything is normal.

“I
know. But you can learn a lot of new games –.” he
begins, because Jay priorities aren’t human ones.

“You didn’t
even ask and it might be scared and confusled and and and –.”

“Jay.”
He turns to me. “Your phone was full of Outsiders you captured on
it. Including that one, ah, sink that wasn’t a sink. Pokemon Go
doesn’t have that many Pokemon in it. You were trying to play that
game, but being jaysome you did other things instead and bound a lot
of Outsiders until even whatever you made couldn’t take that
strain, kiddo.”

“But – but –.”

“But you thought
you were playing Pokemon, and we didn’t want to ruin it for you.”

“Oh!”
And Jay is an inhuman blur and then hugging both of us in thanks.
Because as far as he is
concerned, we were doing ‘a helping’ and his trust in us is
almost unshakable.

I hug back, and
wait until he’s fine before saying: “Pototoes!?”

“Oh, I’m
helping some of them get really big and move around so they’re not
bored and I saw War of the Worlds and potatoes would be great in
Tripods you know!” He beams.

I stare at him. The
magician has been a magician for a very long time. He just blinks,
once. “Did the other person ask for this?” he asks before I can
even find my voice.

“Not yet,” Jay
admits, “but lots of people don’t ask for jaysome!”

“Yes. I know. It
might be best if you want until they do ask: sometimes people only
want normal potatoes, you know.”

“Oh!
Okay,” he says, and then asks about lunch happily.

I don’t point out
that he didn’t get supper last night because he decided to do a
binding that put an alarm inside me to remind me when supper should
be – both suppers, since just one wouldn’t be jaysome. Some
things you just have to let go of. I tell him we can have it early,
and get him a new phone, and all is made right in the world.

A collection of miscellany

Condoms will break, but I can assure you that vows of abstinence will break more easily than condoms.

- Dr. Joycelyn Elders

In fantasy, impossible things exist. In science fiction, impossible things exist and can be understood by humans. In supernatural horror, impossible things exist and cannot live in peace with humans.

- Will Shetterly

We are living in a time when you can believe anything, as long as you do not claim it to be true.

- Ravi Zacharia

Religion teaches the dangerous nonsense that death is not the end.

- Richard Dawkins

In the time of harmony the golden age is not in the past, it is in the future

- Paul Signac

"No" is the wildest word in the English language.

- Emily Dickinson

The middle ground between genuinely true and outright faking is unconscious delusion.

- Dean Radin

“You have to surrender to your mediocrity, and just write. Because it’s hard, really hard, to write even a crappy book. But it’s better to write a book that kind of sucks rather than no book at all, as you wait around to magically become Faulkner. No one is going to write your book for you and you can’t write anybody’s book but your own.”